We just got back from a great weekend in Mexico City. As always, we were treated wonderfully by our lovely fans and the producer of the show, Joseph of Noise Kontrol, our distributor in Mexico. We played many songs from Free and Easy for the first time, debuted two brand new songs that we had just recently written, and did a version of “Avicenna” we put together for this show, but the hit of the night was definitely “Dejame.” We were so surprised to hear the entire crowd singing along! What an unforgettable experience!
Lovespirals will play on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at Club Dada X in Mexico City, at 9 pm. The first show in support of their new album, Free & Easy – distributed in Mexico by Noise Kontrol – will also commemorate the club’s 7th anniversary. Ryan and Anji will perform a 1 hour set of songs from both Lovespirals albums, highlighting their soft, soulful, jazz and blues influenced material. The band will be available to autograph CDs after their set. CDs will be on sale at the event. (Show info via the above link)
Wow, what a great week we had in Mexico. Thank you to everyone who came to see us in Leon, Morelia, and Puebla. And very big thanks all of the show producers and especially Aldo, our tour manager! This was by far the busiest of the several times I had played in Mexico before, having to travel several hours each day to get to the next city in time for radio and television interviews followed by soundchecks. We were lucky if we could get five hours of sleep each night. But the enthusiastic crowds every show energized us for some of our best performances yet. We’ll be back!
Last show of Lovespirals 2002 tour, in Puebla, Mexico
Plans are underway for us to do a few shows in and around Mexico City next month. It is unnerving waiting until the last moment like this, but our manager assures us it is happening. Right now, talk is that we’ll do Mexico City, Guanajuato, and now possibly Morelia and Leon, as well. The show dates fall between the 12th and 15th so far. Looks like it will be a full week!
We recently got back from another wonderful time in Mexico. After just dealing with a less than ideal audience in Chicago, the Mexico City audience’s enthusiasm for us, Lycia, and Arcanta was rewarded by great performances from us all (I’d say we all performed much better than in Chicago). The show was one of our best to date, with or without the electricity (those of you who were there know what I mean). The U.S. Projekt Fest audience could learn a few lessons from the Mexican audience, who really seemed to be there for the MUSIC rather than socializing.
After the show, Suzanne and I traveled to Cancun, on the Yucatan, for some relaxation and exploring. The highlight was visiting the pyramids and Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza.
Again, we had a great time in Mexico and look forward to the next time.
This is Ryan again with a little update of what’s going on with us. Our first new music to be released in over a year and a half will be the cd-single Sideways Forest. It is a three songs disc: “Sideways Forest” (the mix that will be on our new album), a trippy groovy remix/re-worked mix of “Sideways Forest” and “Amarillo” — which will not be on the new album. This is set to come out in late June or early July. Our new full length album (still not titled) will follow in September.
We are looking forward to our next live performance at the Projekt Festival at which we’ll be playing two or three new songs in our still all-acoustic set. This will be our first show in Chicago, which was skipped between our West Coast and East Coast tours last year. It should be a lot of fun and please come see us (along with Lycia, lovesliescrushing, and Thanatos on our night) if you are from the area, since we have no plans to be playing there again anytime soon.
Also, if anybody read the Projekt news on the Projekt web, Sam commented on how he thought I wanted to move to Mexico City, as a few people have asked me about. No, I do not want to move there (and no, we were not treated like big rock stars as Sam described). I did say to him that I would like to make more visits there, in the spirit of my Beat heroes like Kerouac, which I plan to do this summer after the Chicago show for a few weeks and visit friends and eat non-stop.
The band had a half page interview in the major national newspaper, El Nacional, for Thurs, February 29, 1996. Following is an English translation, followed by the actual article.
LOVE SPIRALS DOWNWARDS: Music for the End of the Millennium
By XAVIER QUIRARTE
Suzanne Perry and Ryan Lum are in the music scene to enjoy the freedom of creating sounds, and they delegate the pursuit of their art to no one but themselves. Love Spirals Downwards, the creative duo that started on the principle of minimal commitment, has crystallized into two discs. Idylls and Ardor, edited by the independent US label Project, are proof of this. “Music for the end of the millennium,” dark gothic, “ethereal sounds” or “angelical,” are some of the adjectives that their work has earned.
Love Spirals Downwards is one of those alternative bands whose music tends to attract a cult following.
What has happened to this Los Angeles duo, featuring Suzanne Perry (vocals) and Ryan Lum (guitars, electronics), is interesting and sometimes funny.
“One time a magazine wanted to interview us because they thought we had a lot to say about LSD due to our band’s name. But when they learned we’d never tried it, they lost interest,” Perry claimed.
Although many fans attribute the duo’s music with spiritual, mystic and even healing powers, and critics have labelled their work with adjectives as diverse as “dark ethereal,” “gothic,””dream pop,” “angelic,” “Avant Garde,” “ambient,” etc., this young duo put things very simply.
“We just compose music without any specific intention,”Lum says.
Projekt sent over a press clipping of a La Jornada newspaper review of our recent concert in Mexico City. Not sure how great this translation is, but here goes:
Recital with throat and guitar of the angelic duo
“That of Love Spirals Downwards, naked music in the Chopo”
by Pablo Espinosa
With the tenderness of a lullaby, the tenderness of a hologram, the smoothness of a wallflower, the voice of Suzanne Perry lived in the Poplar Museum on Thursday night in a beautiful appeasement, a soliloquy in a waning room, a sedative applied to the shoulder, the neck and the soles of the feet of the soul.
The rain could be heard in Suzanne Perry’s voice. The rains painted by Vicente Rojo, the rains that Saint John Perse sings, the waters of March announced like this.
The band appeared in many newspapers around Mexico City during their recent live appearance. One of the articles promoting the concert was in the daily tabloid-style newspaper, Unomásuno. Following is an English translation plus the original article.
Today at the Chopo Museum: Love Spirals Downwards and La Divina Comedia are Presented
by Javier Delgado
Regarding Love Spirals Downwards:
On their musical approach, Perry and Lum said: “We prefer to do things this way, naturally, because we believe that music is recreated in a much more intimate way…”
Perry and Lum do not consider themselves the typical musicians who are preoccupied with money or fans; there are more important things, like spirituality and the alternative of communicating through music with their peers. This is why the lyrics of their songs seek to transmit emotions, more than a message; “It is above all about something spiritual, mysterious.”
The music of Love Spirals Downwards aims to recover ancient traditions and early experimentation. Folk, psychedelia, and ethereal gothic are the main stylistic tendencies that fuse in their albums and in the songs that are compiled from them.
Regarding the initials LSD, they assured that it is not about promoting any drug, it is a simple coincidence: “We don’t take acid or anything like it, that has nothing to do with us.”
Love Spirals Downwards (LSD), today at the Chopo University Museum (Enrique González Martínez 10, Santa María la Ribera), at 7 PM.
Regarding La Divina Comedia and the Concert:
For the duo, the creative possibilities in the Dark Ethereal style are very great, and that’s why in every new disc they try to broaden their vocabulary and frequently work with a dulcimer, a percussive melodic instrument that adds a new nuance to their music.
For Suzanne Perry, the strongest influences haven’t been those from the musical world that has surrounded her life, but rather the inspiration comes directly from her current working environment.
For their part, Cristina and Vicente, from the group La Divina Comedia, commented that they have been creating this type of music for three years, a time in which they have found spaces oriented toward aggressive punk, which they alternate with LSD to have the possibility of showing their work within a similar musical environment to the one they have developed.
(Javier Delgado)
Love Spirals Downwards article from Unomasuno, February 28, 1995
Ethereal Shoegaze and Electronica from Projekt Records and Chillcuts
